Cnn's Been Outfoxed By A Network With Attitude

TOM JICHA TV/RADIO WRITER

February 2, 2002|TOM JICHA TV/RADIO WRITER

CNN might be where the world turns to get news, but it's no longer the destination of choice for Americans. Fox News Channel has achieved an astonishing surge from nowhere to the top of the cable news ratings. During January, FNC's daylong audience was greater than CNN's for the first time. FNC is also No. 1 in prime time but it has been there and done that before. For the entire day, Fox, which spotted CNN a decade's head start, averaged 656,000 viewers to CNN's 596,000 last month. In their own universe, the reversal is no less cataclysmic than UPN or WB outrating NBC in prime-time. This is the United States over the Russian hockey team in 1980.

The only one not surprised is the unofficial captain of the Fox team, Bill O'Reilly, whose O'Reilly Factor is the most- watched program on any cable news network. "We're taking audience from CNN like crazy," he said last month.

It's not just audience. Fox also swiped Greta Van Susteren, after luring Geraldo Rivera over from CNBC. The Van Susteren raid was in retaliation for CNN cajoling Paula Zahn across the dial. It also led to CNN hiring Connie Chung to go head to head with O'Reilly, an indication CNN still doesn't realize a name is useless without a personality attached. Chung vs. O'Reilly is like bucking an Elton John concert with John Tesh.

Everyone who has cashed in on the talent war owes O'Reilly, the guy who showed personality counts. When Ted Turner founded CNN, he insisted news would be the star, not big-salaried anchors. It was a self-serving strategy but not even Turner believed it, since he made regular runs at broadcast heavyweights. He came close to landing Dan Rather, until CBS figured out it had no one to replace him and upped the ante.

O'Reilly has put Turner's strategy to rest for all time. A popular theory is FNC's success is built upon a small but fervent constituency of hard-core conservatives, the same people who make Rush Limbaugh the most listened-to radio personality in America. There is no denying FNC tilts further right than its competitors. However, it is also true that Fox's final push to the top has come post-Sept. 11, when partisanship has been at an all-time low.

O'Reilly doesn't deny conservatives are the backbone of FNC but says that's only because their viewpoints are dismissed by other national media. "Let's face it. When you have National Public Radio and other outlets, you can't even hear a conservative point of view."

Another manifestation of the bias he perceives is the fact that his name almost never appears without a prefix such as bellicose right-winger or conservative hatchet man. "Every time you write about me, you put a little perjorative adjective in front of my name. I read Bill Moyers is doing a show on PBS. I didn't see one `liberal Bill Moyers.' What's that all about? I'm an independent, but if you want to think I'm a conservative, that's fine. I don't care. But there's no doubt Bill Moyers is a liberal. Do you ever say `the liberal Jeff Greenfield?' Why pigeonhole me when you don't do it to others?"

What's more, those who think he's a partisan haven't been paying attention, he says. "We were the first cable program to come down on the administration and demand the Justice Department investigate Enron. Demand, not ask for."

He also is at odds with Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft. "He hates me," O'Reilly says. "We had his spokesperson on, Mindy Tucker, and I just tore her to pieces. That was the end of my relationship with Ashcroft."

He feels secure taking on the heroes of his constituency because partisanship isn't what fuels him or FNC, he says. "At Fox, there's a lot of attitude and attitude works. People want to be stimulated. They want to have thought-provoking segments. If you're going to come on as Mr. Bland, you're going to get your butt kicked."